Your data: Council Tax

How we use your data

Aberdeen City Council collects and maintains information about you in order to administer and collect Council Tax within Aberdeen City. This is an activity we are legally required to carry out under the Local Government Finance Act 1992 and supporting regulations.

This information can include:

• Your name
• The name(s) of any other people who live in your property
• Your address 
• Financial information including bank details for you and others in your household
• Contact details for you and others in your household
• Any forwarding address or details of any other properties you own or lease in Aberdeen City
• Matriculation numbers and details about courses of study for students
• Information relating to disabilities or mental impairment for you and others in your household where this is needed to establish entitlement to discount or exemption.

We are also provided with information from a variety of different sources, including (but not limited to) private landlords, Housing Associations, other Local Authorities, Grampian Assessor, Electoral Registration Officer, Aberdeen University, Robert Gordon University, North East Scotland College, the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), HMRC, other Council departments and Sheriff Officers. This information is also used by us for administering and collecting Council Tax.

In some circumstances we will use automated decision making to speed up the time it takes to deal with some simple council tax processes. We currently use automated decision making for the following:

• Index an online application to your account
• Change of addresses where you are moving into or out of Aberdeen.
• Purpose Built Student Accommodation

We have more detailed privacy information about how automated decision-making works in these processes. Please read our frequently asked questions. We will always tell you if a decision has been made about you solely on the basis of automated processing, and you will always be able ask us to reconsider this automated decision if you don’t think it is right. 

We also use Council Tax information to verify and update name, address and contact details across the Council, to make sure that we are keeping your personal information accurate and up to date. We may share contact details that you have provided to us with other Council services to enable them to contact you.

Before we make any final changes to case management systems, we may use your information to do some live testing, within the system that manages Council Tax cases, to make sure that any changes work properly. 

We share information with the DWP, HMRC, Grampian Assessor and Sheriff Officers a variety of other organisations all as allowed by law. We are required by law to protect the public funds we administer. We may share information provided to us with other bodies responsible for auditing or administering public funds, in order to prevent and detect fraud.

On behalf of the Auditor General for Scotland, Audit Scotland appoints the auditor to audit the accounts of Aberdeen City Council. Audit Scotland currently requires us to participate in a data matching exercise to assist in the prevention and detection of fraud. We provide sets of data to Audit Scotland for matching for each exercise. These are set out in Audit Scotland's instructions.

The use of data by Audit Scotland in a data matching exercise is carried out with statutory authority, normally under its powers in Part 2A of the Public Finance and Accountability (Scotland) Act 2000. It does not require the consent of the individuals concerned under the Data Protection law.

Data matching by Audit Scotland is subject to a Code of Practice.

Audit Scotland are also responsible for carrying out data matching exercises. Data matching involves comparing computer records held by one body against other computer records held by the same or another body to see how far they match. This is usually personal information.

Computerised data matching allows potentially fraudulent claims and payments to be identified but the inclusion of personal data within a data matching exercise does not mean that any specific individual is under suspicion. Where a match is found it indicates that there may be an inconsistency that requires further investigation. No assumption can be made as to whether there is fraud, error or other explanation until an investigation is carried out. The exercise can also help bodies to ensure that their records are up to date.

For further information on Audit Scotland's legal powers and the reasons why it matches particular information, please see the full text privacy notice or contact:

Revenues and Benefits
Business Hub 16
Aberdeen City Council
Marischal College
Broad Street
Aberdeen
AB10 1AB

More information about all of the processing activities carried out as part of carrying out Council Tax duties is included in the table below.

How long we keep your information for

We have a project underway to implement deletion of Council Tax information where the liability for Council Tax within Aberdeen City has ended and there are no outstanding Council Tax balances. Information will only be deleted where these circumstances have been met and the information is older than the current financial year plus six years. The full range of circumstances where we will keep or delete information is being decided as part of this work and will be detailed here on completion of the project.

Where we make decisions based on automated processing, the tool we use does not retain information for longer than 24 hours.  

Your rights

Aberdeen City Council is the Data Controller for information about you that we use to administer Council Tax. You have rights to your data, including the right to ask for a copy of it. See more information about all of the rights you have. You also have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office. They are the body responsible for making sure organisations like the Council handle your data lawfully.

Our legal basis

Aberdeen City Council is the Data Controller for your information. Wherever we are processing personal information we need to make sure we have a legal basis in data protection law. The table below sets out the Council’s legal basis for each of the data processing activities we carry out with Council Tax data.